What if Walt Disney was the producer of Looney Tunes/Walt Disney Animated Classics/The Jungle Book
The Jungle Book is a 1967 American animated musical adventure comedy film produced by Walt Disney loosely based on the Mowgli stories published in the anthology book of the same name by Rudyard Kipling. The 22rd Disney animated feature film, the film follows Mowgli, a feral child raised in the Indian jungle by wolves, as his friends Bagheera the panther, Baloo the bear, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose, Ikki the porcupine and Kaa the giant python try to convince him to leave the jungle before the evil tiger Shere Khan and his idiotic sidekick Tabaqui the hyena arrive. Along the way, Mowgli encounters jungle creatures who don’t exactly have his best interests at heart, including Hiss, a sly and hungry snake whose colorful hypnotic gaze hypnotizes the man-cub, Nag and Nagaina, two lazy and wicked yet idiotic cobras who try to enslaving Mowgli; and King Louie, an orangutan who wants to be a human and wants Mowgli to teach him how to make fire. The early versions of both the screenplay and the soundtrack followed Kipling's work more closely, with a dramatic, dark, and sinister tone which Walt Disney did not want in his family film, leading to writer Bill Peet and composer Terry Gilkyson being replaced. The casting employed famous actors and musicians Phil Harris, George Sanders, Bill Thompson and Louis Prima, as well as Disney regulars such as Sebastian Cabot, Mel Blanc, June Foray, Sterling Holloway, J. Pat O'Malley and Verna Felton, and Bruce Reitherman, Wolfgang Reitherman's son, as Mowgli. The film contains a number of classic songs, including "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You". Most of the songs were written by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. The film was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman and Chuck Jones. The film grossed over $73 million in the United States in its first release, and as much again from three re-releases. After the film's success, Disney released a sequel The Jungle Book 2 in 2003. Despite having mostly mixed reviews, The Jungle Book 2 was also a commercial success; a live-action adaptation directed by Jon Favreau was released in 2016. The film stands as one of the most popular Disney movies of all time. In its initial release, the popularity was comparable to that of The Lion King or Frozen, making it a great influence for some of today's biggest names in animation (such as Andreas Deja and Brad Bird), as well as one of Walt Disney's personal favorites. However, Disney wouldn't receive a similar success until The Little Mermaid (1989). Though it should be noted that Disney did have some successful films during that time period, most notably Charlotte's Web (1973), The Rescuers (1977) and An American Tale (1986). Plot Cast Differences between the book and the film When Walt Disney and his team read Kipling's book, they decided to make it a more family-friendly film and altered the story. Here are some main differences: * Rama is simply called Father Wolf in the book. His name in the film is an error; in the book, Rama is actually a bull from the cattle herd Mowgli had to drive when he lived in the man village. * In the book, it is Father Wolf and Raksha who find Mowgli, not Bagheera as seen in the film. * In the book, Bagheera spoiled Mowgli. He is more serious in the film. * In the book, Shere Khan is killed by Mowgli and a herd of cattle. In the film, he does not die but runs away and tries to put out the flaming branch on his tail. * In the film, Baloo is portrayed as a fun-loving, silly bear who cares deeply about Mowgli. In the book, he is a sleepy, wise and serious bear who taught Mowgli the Law of the Jungle. * In the book, Ikki is only a minor character. In the film, he is a main character and one of Mowgli's friends. * In the book, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is a character from other story in the book. In the film, he one of Mowgli's friends. Nag and Nagaina are also characters from the same other story and are added in the film as minor antagonists. * In the book, Kaa is a male character. In the film, he is portrayed as a female character. * Hiss, the snake who tries to eat Mowgli, is not present in the book either. He was an original character who was created for a similar role to Sylvester Pussycat from the Looney Tunes/''Merrie Melodies'' shorts and the Wolf from The Sword in the Stone. * In the film, Kaa hypnotizes the Bandar-logs with her eyes. In the book, however, Kaa hypnotizes through a dance that affects everyone but Mowgli. * In the book, Colonel Hathi is a wise ruler of the jungle, while in the movie he is a pompous war elephant who often forgets things. * In the book, Hathi has three children, but no spouse (she is not mentioned, it is possible that he had a wife, but was not important for the book). In the film, he has only one child, Junior, a wife, Winifred, and an equal amount of male and female herd members. * In the film, the Bandar-logs are ruled by a king, King Louie, while in the book it is repeatedly stated that they have no form of leadership whatsoever (which it was the reason they had kidnapped Mowgli in the book). * The vultures and Rocky the Rhino are not present in the book either. They, like Hiss and King Louie, were original characters who were made to resemble The Beatles. The only bird that plays an important role in the book is Chil the Kite, who is absent from the film. * In the book, Tabaqui is a golden jackal and he is a sarcastic and tattle-tall character, while in the film, he is a striped hyena (like some later movie adaptations of the original Jungle Book) and is a more cowardly, idiotic, hungry, incompetent, conniving, dimwitted, laughable and comedic character, laughing at his own bad jokes and irritating Shere Khan. * The wolves play an important part in the book. In the film, the wolves are only in the beginning of the story. * In the book, Mowgli eats meat like his foster wolf family. In the film, he eats fruit like Baloo and King Louie. * In the book, Mowgli realizes he needs to go back to the man village. In the film, he desires to stay in the jungle until the end of the film. * There is no girl that lures Mowgli into the village in the book. In the book, the main female character is a woman named Messua who adopts Mowgli. * In the book, Shere Khan is lame from birth (meaning crippled/unable to walk,) which is why he only killed cattle. In the film, there is no mention of him being lame at all. Production Development and writing After The Sword in the Stone was released, storyman Bill Peet claimed to Walt Disney that "we animation department can do more interesting animal characters" and suggested that Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book could be used for the studio's next film. Disney agreed and Peet created an original treatment, with little supervision, as he had done with One Hundred and One Dalmatians and The Sword in the Stone. However, after his disappointing reaction to The Sword in the Stone, Walt Disney decided to become more involved in the story than he had been with the past two films, with his nephew Roy E. Disney saying that "he certainly influenced everything about it. (...) With Jungle Book, he obviously got hooked on the jungle and the characters that lived there". Peet decided to follow closely the dramatic, dark and sinister tone of Kipling's book, which is about the struggles between animals and man. However, the film's writers decided to make the story more straightforward, as the novel is very episodic, with Mowgli going back and forth from the jungle to the Man-Village, and Peet felt that Mowgli returning to the Man-Village should be the ending for the film. Following suggestions, Peet also created three original characters: the human girl for which Mowgli falls in love, as the animators considered that falling in love would be the best excuse for Mowgli to leave the jungle; the unnamed snake (who would be later named 'Hiss' by later Disney media) who tries to eat Mowgli; and King Louie, the king of the Bandar-logs. In early drafts, King Louie was a less comical character, enslaving Mowgli trying to get the boy to teach him to make fire. The orangutan would also show a plot point borrowed from The Second Jungle Book, gold and jewels under his ruins — after Mowgli got to the man village, a poacher named Buldeo (the villain from Tiger! Tiger!, the third Mowgli story from the book) would drag the boy back to the ruins in search for the treasure, only to be later killed by Shere Khan, who was then shot by Mowgli. Disney was not pleased with how the story was turning out, as he felt it was too dark for family viewing and insisted on script changes. Peet refused, and after a long argument, Peet left the Disney studio in January 1964. Disney then assigned Larry Clemmons as his new writer and one of the four story men for the film, giving Clemmons a copy of Kipling's book, and telling him: "The first thing I want you to do is not to read it". Clemmons still looked at the novel, and thought it was too disjointed and without continuity, needing adaptations to fit a film script. Clemmons wanted to start in medias res, with some flashbacks afterwards, but then Disney said to focus on doing the storyline more straight - "Let's do the meat of the picture. Let's establish the characters. Let's have fun with it". Although much of Bill Peet's work was discarded, the personalities of the characters remained in the final film. This was because Disney felt that the story should be kept simple, and the characters should drive the story. Disney took an active role in the story meetings, acting out each role and helping to explore the emotions of the characters, help create gags and develop emotional sequences. Clemmons would write a rough script with an outline for most sequences. The story artists then discussed how to fill the scenes, including the comedic gags to employ. The script also tried to incorporate how the voice actors molded their characters and interacted with each other. Casting Animation While many of the later Disney feature films had animators being responsible for single characters, in The Jungle Book the animators were in charge of whole sequences, since many have characters interacting with one another. The animation was done by xerography, with character design, lead by Ken Anderson, employing rough, artistic edges in contrast to the round animals seen in productions such as Dumbo. Anderson also decided to make Shere Khan resemble his voice actor, George Sanders. Backgrounds were hand-painted - with exception of the waterfall, mostly consisting of footage of the Angel Falls - and sometimes scenery was used in both foreground and bottom to create a notion of depth. Following one of Reitherman's trademarks of reusing animation of his previous films, the wolf cubs are based on dogs from One Hundred and One Dalmatians. The chase in King Louie's ruins is reused from the chase scene in The Wind in the Willows. Animator Milt Kahl based Bagheera and Shere Khan's movements on live-action felines, which he saw in two Disney productions, A Tiger Walks and the "Jungle Cat" episode of True-Life Adventures. Baloo was also based on footage of bears, even incorporating the animal's penchant for scratching. Since Kaa and Hiss have no limbs, its design received big expressive eyes and parts of their bodies did the action that normally would be done with hands. The monkeys' dance during "I Wan'na Be Like You" was partially inspired by a performance Louis Prima did with his band at Disney's soundstage to convince Walt Disney to cast him. Music Release and reception Theatrical run Home media Critical reception Trivia *This is the first Disney film since Sleeping Beauty to include both a storybook opening and a storybook closing. *In the game files for Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, there exists locations for a world based on The Jungle Book. However, these locations are available for exploration via cheats. *This film was rated G by the Motion Picture Association of America. *This is the tenth Disney animated classic to have the 2006 Walt Disney Pictures logo at the end of the movie, on current releases.